During a surgical procedure, a surgeon or other medical professional (hereafter, “user”) may desire to place a medical device, of any type, into a predetermined position with respect to a patient tissue. The user may wish to achieve the desired placement in a relatively precise manner. For example, during placement of a stent, graft, stent-graft, or other medical prosthesis (hereafter referenced generically as a “stent”) across an aortic aneurysm using a delivery catheter or guidewire, it may be desirable to orient the stent within the blood vessel (a body lumen) such that the stent is substantially centered within the vessel (as viewed across a lateral cross-section of the vessel), with each end of the stent being located longitudinally adjacent a non-aneurytic portion of the blood vessel upstream and downstream, respectively, from the aneurysm. (In this example, the body of the stent will “bridge” across/through the aneurysm to maintain a bloodflow channel therethrough which is substantially similar in cross-sectional area to the non-aneurytic neighbouring portions of the blood vessel.)
Because of the relative difficulty in placing a medical device precisely during a closed (percutaneous) medical procedure, a user will often consult an intraoperative imaging system (e.g., x-ray fluoroscopy) to periodically “check” the position of the medical device as it is moved toward the desired target site by a delivery device. However, commonly used intraoperative imaging devices may require that the procedure be paused during image acquisition, thus lengthening the total operative time. In addition, radiopaque markers or components may be required on the medical device and/or the delivery device to enable intraoperative tracking—the radiopaque components might not represent a preferred design path for the device, though, absent the need to facilitate imaging. Finally, certain types of imaging systems are magnetically sensitive, requiring the provision of specialized, largely non-magnetic medical devices and/or delivery devices to avoid negative side effects.